Fossil and nuclear energies are not just climate drivers – they are central causes of modern wars. From Russia to Iran to Ukraine, it is clear that energy dependency is becoming a geopolitical weapon. However, the peacemaking power of renewable energies hardly played a role at the Munich Security Conference 2026.
Hans-Josef Fell | Newsletter from 24.02.2026 |
Current newsletter – Hans-Josef Fell – Ambassador for 100% renewable energies
Dear readers!
It is becoming more and more dramatic: autocrats, dictators and even presidents in the EU are using fossil and nuclear energy dependencies as a potential for blackmail, as a weapon, to finance wars and are constantly creating new wars and emergencies.
Fossil energies as a geopolitical weapon
The long list of current wars, blackmail, geopolitical upheavals and emergencies caused by dependence on nuclear and fossil fuels is growing longer every day:
- Iran recently briefly closed the Strait of Hormuz, demonstrating that it would massively jeopardize the world’s energy supply in the event of an American attack. 31% of globally shipped crude oil and 21% of global LNG must pass through this strait to reach energy customers. A prolonged closure of the Hormuz shipping route would cause the price of crude oil to rise to over 100 dollars per barrel and put a massive strain on the global economy, including in Europe.
Source: Berliner Zeitung – Impending US attack on Iran and possible oil price shocks
Nuclear energy as a geopolitical risk
- The dispute over Iran’s nuclear weapons program will become even more intense in the future, as Iran recently agreed with Russia to build four new nuclear reactors. In doing so, Iran is circumventing Western sanctions, expanding nuclear energy to produce nuclear weapons-grade fuel and demonstrating how nuclear energy can fuel war.
Source: n-tv – Russia to build four nuclear power plants in Iran
Russia, Iran and energy as a weapon
- The German government under Chancellor Merz is also ignoring Russia’s serious safety problems, nuclear energy and war financing. According to a press release issued by “ausgestrahlt” on February 22, 2026, it is recommending to the responsible Lower Saxony Minister Christian Meyer (Alliance 90/The Greens) that the Russian company Rosatom take over the production of fuel elements in Lingen. In doing so, it is ignoring warnings from German security authorities and foreign experts about the associated risks of sabotage, espionage and terrorism, as became apparent in the associated 2024 discussion meeting.
Source: ausgestrahlt – Lingen nuclear factory and the hearing
Apparently, the German government is not bothered by the fact that Russia is even gaining access to sensitive critical infrastructures.
- In Sudan and Libya, rival rulers have been fighting for years over the country’s oil wells. In order to consolidate their power with the oil revenues, hundreds of thousands of people have to die in brutal civil wars.
Source: taz – War in Sudan escalates
Quelle: Stuttgarter Zeitung – Impending fighting in Libya: Battle for oil, money and power
- In the US war against Venezuela, President Trump had President Maduro kidnapped in violation of international law, leaving around 100 people, security personnel and civilians dead. Trump attacked Venezuela because of its oil wealth and is now distributing the oil revenues and sources among his US oil companies.
Source: DER SPIEGEL – Venezuela reports around 100 dead in US attack
- Trump is now blocking Cuba’s oil imports from Venezuela and Mexico, after which a national state of emergency had to be declared there immediately. The humanitarian and economic hardship is great, people are fighting for sheer survival.
Source: taz – Desolate situation in Cuba
- Despite the agreement already reached within the EU and a decision by the European Parliament, Hungary is now blocking a multi-billion euro EU loan for Ukraine. “As long as Ukraine blocks the Druzhba pipeline, Hungary will block the 90 billion euro war loan,” declared Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Source: tagesschau.de – Hungary threatens to block Ukraine aid
- In the dispute over the stopped oil supplies from the Russian Druzhba pipeline, the Slovakian President Fico, who is close to Russia, has now even threatened to stop electricity supplies to Ukraine in the middle of the energy emergency!
Source: tagesschau.de – Dispute over Druzhba pipeline: Slovakia threatens Ukraine
- The EU spends more money on Russian oil and gas than on aid to Ukraine. According to estimates by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), EU countries bought €21.9 billion worth of Russian oil and gas in the third year after the Russian attack on Ukraine (February 2024 to February 2025). Imports from Russia were accounted for by gas in pipelines (€9.6 billion), liquefied natural gas (€7 billion) and crude oil via pipelines (€4 billion).
Source: Business Insider – EU spends more money on Russian oil and gas than on Ukraine aid
- In total, Russia received the equivalent of almost 93 billion euros in revenue from oil and gas sales in 2025. Although this is the lowest level since 2020 and a decrease of 24% compared to the previous year, it is still the main source of funding for the war against Ukraine.
Source: Die Presse – Russian oil and gas revenues fall to five-year low
- France has been having its fuel rods enriched in Russia again since fall 2025. 20 nuclear power plants in the EU continue to purchase fuel elements from Russia and thus continue to finance Russia’s war against Ukraine. Even in the fourth year of the war against Ukraine, there are no EU sanctions in the nuclear sector.
Source: Watson – France: Macron resumes nuclear deal with Putin
Ukraine: Decentralized renewables as a survival strategy
- Russia is using Ukraine ‘s central energy supply of nuclear, natural gas and coal-fired power plants and oil infrastructure as targets and is systematically destroying them right now in the cold winter in order to conquer Ukraine. President Selensky at the Munich Security Conference: “There is not a single power plant left in Ukraine that has not been damaged by Russian attacks – not a single one”
Source: reporteri.net – Selenskyj: No power plant in Ukraine undamaged
The list of nuclear and fossil energy supplies as a cause of war, war financing, weapons of war and means of war is growing almost daily. What comes next?
Taiwan and the danger of the energy blockade
China’s naval blockade of Taiwan?
Taiwan covers over 95% of its total energy needs through imports, with fossil fuels forming the backbone of its electricity supply. Over 80% of electricity is generated by burning coal and natural gas. As the country has almost no fossil resources of its own, it relies heavily on maritime supply chains from abroad, making security of supply a critical geopolitical security factor. Although Taiwan has ended its foreign dependence on uranium supplies by shutting down all its nuclear reactors, its dependence on fossil fuels makes the island vulnerable, just as Cuba is today.
Source: Radio Taiwan International – Taiwan’s energy dependence
China frequently carries out military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and, in particular, exercises naval blockades. The situation is highly explosive, as China considers Taiwan to be its own territory.
Since 2003, I have been invited to Taiwan several times and have spoken with presidents and ministers about rapidly expanding and using renewable energies as a domestic resource in order to become more resilient in terms of security policy.
However, Taiwan has not yet been successful. Only 3% of its energy needs are currently covered by renewable energies – dependence on fossil imports is Taiwan’s greatest security threat.
Jimmy Carter and the vision of peace energy
Jimmy Carter: Creating peace with dispersed, decentralized renewable energies
Back in the 1970s, after the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Palestine, OPEC cut off the Western world’s oil supply and thus used oil as a weapon. Since then, it has been clear to me that renewable energies are the energies of peace and must be at the center of security and geopolitical policy.
Jimmy Carter, then President of the USA, recognized the increasing dependence on fossil and nuclear raw material imports as a cause of war. In a scientific study, he set out the goal of creating peace for the USA with dispersed, decentralized renewable energies.
During his time in office, he inaugurated a solar installation on the White House with the words: “We use the energy of the sun to enrich our lives, while
we free ourselves from our dependence on imported oil.”
Source: German Historical Museum – Jimmy Carter and solar energy
His successor, the Republican Ronald Reagan, who, like Trump, had his election campaign financed by the oil industry, dismantled the solar system and with it all subsidies for renewable energies. In doing so, he sowed the seeds for many oil wars around the world.
Munich Security Conference 2026 – Why renewables are missing
The Munich Security Conference (MSC) has still not recognized the peace-building effect of renewable energies
However, these visionary views of US President Jimmy Carter have long since been forgotten, even though the global community is increasingly drowning in the wars and geopolitical upheavals caused by oil, natural gas, coal and uranium.
The more the wars over fossil raw materials and their use as war financing and weapons of war increase, the less it seems to me that the peace effect of renewable energies is recognized.
Why renewable energies create geopolitical resilience
Yet it should be crystal clear to everyone: You can’t fight wars over sunbeams and wind. Nor can they fill the coffers of warlords. Jimmy Carter’s quote: “No one can embargo sunlight” makes it abundantly clear that solar and wind energy cannot be used as a political weapon to reduce geopolitical tensions.
At the Munich Security Conference, however, such strategies play no or only a subordinate role.
EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen made it clear in the discussion with Economics Minister Katherina Reiche that energy security is inextricably linked to general security and that Europe must consistently focus on electrification and renewable energies. In contrast, Ms. Reiche’s current grid package clearly focuses on curbing the expansion of renewable energies and will thus further exacerbate conflicts and wars over fossil and nuclear resources.
Source: Hans-Josef Fell – Minister Reiche’s grid package is a frontal attack against EEG expansion
Panel for decentralized energy security with renewable energies for Ukraine was not present at the MSC
Ukraine’s plight this winter – where an energy emergency has been declared several times and, according to President Selensky, all power plants have been damaged – should clearly open people’s eyes to the fact that it must be part of Ukraine’s survival strategy to quickly switch its energy supply to renewable, decentralized energy.
But this was not discussed at the MSC.
Obviously, the leadership of the MSC does not have these solutions in mind. Instead, they continue to seek solutions for Ukraine that lie within the fossil fuel system. For example, the USA is now to supply LNG and crude oil to Ukraine.
Only a few people at the MSC will think that this strategy will make it easy for Russia to shoot up the oil and gas infrastructure next winter, leaving the Ukrainians in the dark and cold again. It is time for the MSC to finally invite experts who are familiar with resilient island solutions based on renewable energies.
Here you can read the content of a proposal for the MSC from my environment that was unfortunately not discussed at the MSC.
Centralized fossil and nuclear supply structures for electricity and heat are the greatest security risk for Ukraine and therefore also for Germany and the EU
Decentralized renewable domestic energies are the key solution for Ukraine’s energy resilience
Russia has been bombing large power plants, substations, refineries, pipelines and other central energy infrastructure for many months. This war tactic greatly reduces Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.
The all-important solution is a decentralized, area-wide full supply of domestic renewable energies: solar, wind, bioenergy (vegetable oils, biogas, wood), hydropower, geothermal energy, ocean energies, in combination with storage systems such as batteries, are in principle capable of supplying Ukraine completely and resiliently with electricity and heat
Military resilience requires independence in energy supply. A rapid development of a decentralized 100% renewable energy supply based on domestic resources is necessary in order to be able to continue to stand up to the aggressor Russia. Those who can generate and use electricity, heat and fuel for the military, the population and companies from domestic resources in a decentralized manner will have energy even if the central infrastructure is destroyed.
Domestic 100% use of renewable energies also ends the business with fossil raw materials and nuclear technologies and thus removes the main source of funding for warring nations such as Russia and terrorist organizations in the world. A decentralized supply of 100% renewable energy is also much more resilient to war or terrorist attacks in other countries than a centralized fossil and nuclear infrastructure.
For Ukraine, this means
The strong pillars of a decentralized energy supply are solar energy, wind energy, in combination with batteries, small hydropower plants, geothermal energy and, especially in cold dark winter times, the supplementary domestic storage technology bioenergy such as vegetable oils, biogas and wood.
It is precisely this domestic, decentralized energy supply that creates significantly more resilience and thus resilience and survivability against war and terror. At the same time, it creates protection against further heating of the earth, which otherwise increasingly undermines human security with its catastrophic consequences of droughts, famines, heat waves and extreme weather.
